by Doug Ashbury
Northern News Services

NNSL (Aug 29/97) - Ginny Wainwright said she's Canadian first. Some of her contemporaries from Quebec are not.

Yellowknife resident Wainwright, a third-year University of Regina student, recently returned from the second annual Youth Unity Conference in Hull, Que. The event, sponsored by the co-operators insurance company, united 100 students from across Canada to discuss Canadian unity.

Two of the conference's Quebec contingent were "die-hard separatists," Wainwright said. "'We are Quebecers first and Canadians second' they said."

Wainwright, planning to be a doctor, is bilingual. Before the conference she said she did not really think a separate Quebec would affect her.

But now, she feels "we have to understand each other to be stronger as a country."

The conference's goal was to understand people from other parts of Canada, she said.

"I knew very little about the eastern part of Canada," she said.

Despite their differences, the group found they have common concerns, like future employment, she said.

To promote unity, students took in presentations by other students on the regions of Canada. They also discussed their home provinces or territories.

Wainwright, born and raised in Yellowknife, said many Canadians have a surprising lack of knowledge about the North.

"The North is often forgotten. Everyone talked about Canada's 10 provinces but didn't mention the two territories," she said.

"It wasn't until Moira Vane (another Yellowknifer at the conference) did a regional presentation and talked about the North that everyone described Canada as 10 provinces and two territories."

Vane, who attended last year's conference as a delegate and this year's as a presenter, told the group about Nunavut.

Wainwright said many of the students at the conference didn't know that in two years, with division of the NWT, "there would be a new line on Canada's map."